• Discovery. Not everything starts visible. search, forage, survey, or look can uncover hidden items and make them legal targets.
• Mobs. Creatures follow their nature: herbivores browse, carnivores hunt. Defeating one usually drops things to collect or craft with.
• Things. Gear adds its power to your rolls once you equip it, and any two carried items can combine through crafting.

Each world is guarded by a World Boss; the portal onward stays sealed until it falls. The deepest world is the frontier. Slay its boss, and the hero who lands the killing blow earns a one-time right to meditate world ! <vision> and forge the next world from their imagination. Every conquered frontier opens the next. The chain never ends.

• To return, the voters choose meditate live ! <reason>. The reason must feel sincere within the fiction; it faces the same AI judge you can try in the growth chapter.
• Chat decides permadeath at the summoning. While a hero is being summoned, the channel votes yes or no. The tally is a weighted roll rather than a majority: at 80% yes, permadeath comes out on 80% of the time, so a strong minority still gets its way sometimes. If nobody votes, permadeath is on.
• With permadeath on, a return costs banked experience equal to the hero's current level. Can't afford it? The death sticks, the story closes with one last beat, and the channel can summon someone new. Bank experience before you court danger.
• With permadeath off, a fall is a setback, not an ending. The reason still has to convince the judge, but the cost takes whatever experience the hero has rather than stranding them.